Thursday, April 30, 2009

Sidenote: How Crazy is this tournament?

Is it incredibly crazy? Or maybe insanely crazy?

In any case, the tournament is definitely operating on some level of crazy.

Could anyone have foreseen that of the 8 teams that made playoffs last year, the only team left in the semifinals is the one that lost critical players? Not me. Not anyone. Now we have an ROI vs. Saudi Arabia semifinal, and a Portugal vs. El Salvador semifinal. Don't even bother trying to predict what will happen, it's impossible. Anything can happen in this tournament, and people forget that every year. But this particular year will be impossible to forget.

Here's a little preview for tonight's games.

Saudi Arabia vs. ROI- Saudi Arabia is an all-around good team. All their players are decent, most of them have the ability to score from anywhere, and they have a very balanced attack. They don't rely on one individual to get the job done, they find a way around the opposing team. ROI is bigger, and likely has more individual talent. They do not have the same hustle of the Saudi Arabia team, so after ROI attacks, it will be critical for Saudi Arabia to have a very quick counterattack. Look for ROI to be scoring off of free kicks.

Portugal vs. El Salvador- Both teams are very offensive teams. They both rely on the ball skills of the forwards to hold up the ball and create chances. With El Salvador, the ball is distributed from the back to the forward almost every time. If Portugal players can stay on their man and not let them stand there looking for a chance, Portugal will have success. However, no one has done that so far. Portugal works the same way, relying on the forwards to hold up the ball and wait for the team to get to their spot.